⏰BREAKING The Department of Justice has submitted a letter to the clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court notifying it of a change in position over "gender affirming care" for minors, which directly impacts the constitutional challenge to Tennessee's ban in U.S. v Skrmetti. BUT the U.S. DOJ is NOT withdrawing its petition for cert (review) and pulling itself from the case. Instead, the Deputy Solicitor General writes: Nevertheless, the United States believes that the confluence of several factors counsels against seeking to dismiss its case in this Court. The Court’s prompt resolution of the question presented will bear on many cases pending in the lower courts. Since granting certiorari last June, the Court has received full briefing and heard oral argument, including from the private plaintiffs, who have participated in this Court as respondents supporting the United States at the merits stage and who remain adverse to the state respondents in a dispute that has not become moot. Accordingly, the Court may resolve the question presented without either granting the private plaintiffs’ pending petition for a writ of certiorari, see L.W. v. Skrmetti...or requesting further, likely duplicative briefing from the same parties about the same court of appeals judgment in the underlying suit between the private plaintiffs and the state respondents. This was the best possible position for DOJ to take. The court has heard all it needs to hear on the constitutionality of state bans on gender affirming care for minors. Briefing is done, oral arguments are done. And though the official position of the U.S. is now different than it was under Biden, the issue remains salient, and the Court should still resolve it. Failing to do so means trans-identified children will continue to suffer gender butchery in the states while litigation proceeds. States have a constitutional right to protect vulnerable children (my scholarship on the issue is included in the reply). Now, we wait to see what SCOTUS will do.